Also, on the point about winning teams bringing in vets, I agree, but look at the quality of vets brought in by SA (Finley, Van Exel) Miami (Walker, Payton,) versus what Joe throws against the wall at trade deadine time, and is lauded as making a shrewd move that no predicted. No one predicted it because, as it turns out, it usually is a waste.

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Did you forget about Rasheed Wallace or did you just start following the Pistons?

I like the idea of other teams making the sacrifice of developing talent and then trading for them right before they're ready to make a splash (Rip).

It'd be interesting to see the % of draft picks that stayed with their teams beyond 4 years...10% ?

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Excellent point: young talent and the present day immaturity levels are huge handicaps for 1-4 year inductees. Unless you have ready access to the top five draft picks, it is all one huge crap-shoot. The draft and those that stick around past 3 years is a savior oriented playground for high hopes quickly dashed.

You need a big center and one excellent scorer-playmaker. The rest are selected roles defined by team culture (geographic and class orientation), media sophistication, ownership perceptions, coaching-staff philosophy, starting-bench chemistry, health and some luck.

If you look at the Eastern Conference, there are only two who qualify and will be left standing: Miami and Detroit (and the latter are doing it without a center which should give you a clue on how tough they really are).

The Western Conference has the same: Dallas and San Antonio. Personally, I think it is San Antonio’s to lose.

It certainly is a hoot, so see all this mooning and hand-wringing from the gallery: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

FWIW…while Ben made himself into a necessity; he had some great psychological support from the fans and the media. I wish him well, but you never hear about what he might have lost. I mean…how many cars can you drive at once? It might be ironic that his greatest missing memory might be the neighborhood kids coming over wanting to play with the remotes. You never know.

This thread answers to D59 a little bit.
If you can't sit on your hands, and keep your mouth shut, JD will trade you. I'm not talking about Hill or Houston situations, but Darko and maybe Fino. But in their defense, if you think you deserve more be prepared to fight a running [trade] battle.
For Mo to get 15 min. was huge @ $1.5 mil. Although most here hated Mo, Zenmaster thinks he can use some of that!!!

I would suggest that the reason you keep hearing the same old arguments for playing the young players to develop them is that we keep hearing the same old arguments against playing them.

And not playing them has not gotten the job done, so why not try playing them. You have to count the last 'ship on the side of playing them because we did, that year.

I have never seen stats posted to show that playing a less experienced player 5 or 7 minutes a game, ever lost a game, but even if it might lose a game here or there, the ability to have people ready to come in off the bench would offset it.

Pistons have developed Prince and Okur. Just not enough decent picks. Its a little tough when you throw away 3 lottery picks in 6 years ( Cleaves, White, Darko ) but Prince and Okur are playing like lottery picks. Too bad we did not have Okur now.

Pistons have developed Prince and Okur. Just not enough decent picks. Its a little tough when you throw away 3 lottery picks in 6 years ( Cleaves, White, Darko ) but Prince and Okur are playing like lottery picks. Too bad we did not have Okur now.

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Cleaves and White were honest mistakes, it wasn't physically possible to develop them. Okur, we had a choice, because he was a 2nd round pick, of either him or Sheed, you can't blame Joe for that.

But as far Darko, we expected him to act like a veteran, even though he was some punk 17 year old kid, that didn't speak English, and just got 10 mil in his bank account. Well, we developed him. Unfortunately, we didn't realize it.

He's now a 20 year old, WallaceX2 trained, LB taught, Karner built, p'oed Serb with something to prove. Except he's playing for Orlando.

Joe, get some cap space, and get ready to offer the kid the max. No way Orlando pays Darko and Dwight the max. You brought back the dupe, nothing wrong with bringing back the Serbian Gangster.

Cleaves and White were honest mistakes, it wasn't physically possible to develop them. Okur, we had a choice, because he was a 2nd round pick, of either him or Sheed, you can't blame Joe for that.

But as far Darko, we expected him to act like a veteran, even though he was some punk 17 year old kid, that didn't speak English, and just got 10 mil in his bank account. Well, we developed him. Unfortunately, we didn't realize it.

He's now a 20 year old, WallaceX2 trained, LB taught, Karner built, p'oed Serb with something to prove. Except he's playing for Orlando.

Joe, get some cap space, and get ready to offer the kid the max. No way Orlando pays Darko and Dwight the max. You brought back the dupe, nothing wrong with bringing back the Serbian Gangster.

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And yet the kid still has not proved anything. To me Okur is the one that got away. Okur has established himself as one of the games dominate big men and we still focus on Darko because of his draft position.

Heres food for thought. If we did not have Darko's expensive rookie contract then could we have retained Okur?

You mean if we did not have the draft pick at all. Even if we took Melo at #2, there salary would have been the same. It's a fixed scale for rookies.

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Yes if we did not have the pick period. Would we have been better off if we never got the dang thing. Looks like it would not have matterd, thanks for answering that.

There were a lot of things going on with Okur. He never publicly said it, never pulled a Delfino in the Turkish press but you can tell that he did not like LB and probably would not have signed anyway.

Still - we had him and he turned out to be good and is playing for another team. That 9 mil/yr looks like a pretty good deal at this point.

Well of course you would see Max's point. Some think we did give the pick away! LOL
What's a 2 pick to a perenial 'ship team anyway? Dead weight. We can't stoop that low. We need seasoned players now.
Rookies, please...